Big 10, Pac-12 announce future scheduling agreement

Conjuring up images of the ACC/Big Ten Challenge in basketball, the Big Ten and Pac-12 announced today that they have entered into an agreement for a future series involving the members of the respective conferences. Beginning in 2017, each of the 12 members of the Pac-12 will face a member of the 12-school Big Ten in football.

The news of the collaboration was first reported by Pete Thamel of the New York Times.

“As other conferences continue to grow through expansion, we believe there is great merit in deepening the historic relationship between the Big Ten and Pac-12,” said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany. “We believe that both conferences can preserve that sense of collegiality and still grow nationally by leveraging our commonalities in a way that benefits student-athletes, fans and alumni. This collaboration can and will touch many institutional undertakings, and will complement our academic and athletic missions.”

“Through numerous conversations over the past several months with stakeholders from the Big Ten and Pac-12, we decided there would be great value in building upon the history and collegiality that exists between our member institutions, by initially committing to an increased frequency of play between our schools in all sports,” said Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott.

Chris Dufresne of the Los Angeles Times writes that “[t]he goal by 2017 is for each Pac-12 school to play a Big Ten school on its nonconference football schedule.” Dufresne also writes that “[p]lans include a preseason game at the Rose Bowl, possibly as soon as 2013 or 2014, involving schools from each conference.”

Scott confirmed the possibility/probability of an interleague game at the Rose Bowl prior to the 2017 season, saying “it’s fair to say you’ll see it in some form or faction.” Scott’s counterpart Delany is open to neutral site games in the Midwest, with such venues as Soldier Field, Yankee Stadium and Wrigley Field mentioned as possibilities.

Delany also said that the Big Ten/Pac-12 games would take place during the second, third and fourth weeks of the season, although Scott allowed that there could be season kickoff events involving these interleague games as well.

The two commissioners first discussed the possibility of a collaboration during the summer, with meetings between the member presidents/chancellors and athletic directors finalizing the agreement.

One casualty of the series will be the nine-game conference slate the Big Ten was scheduled to undertake in the coming years; Delaney told the Times that his conference will stick with the balance provided by an eight-game slate. The Pac-12 already incorporates a nine-game conference schedule, but will discuss the issue further.

Incidentally, the scheduling agreement will also include matchups in other sports as well.

A lot can happen between now and 2017. Don’t the member schools in both league have a say in that decision. I don’t think they would look forward to it myself. Suppose the same two teams that meet in an inter league game meet again in the Rose Bowl. How good would that be for either team? I think the OCC schedules of individual teams should be decided by the colleges, not by a league mandated game. It will probably not help either team, if they meet and will probably hurt one of the teams, chances at getting in the BCS. They both have enough teams in their conference to play without having a series game decided by the league every year that could potentially do great harm to one or the other.

This does hurt the BCS title chances of both conferences because it’s another game against a usually tough opponent. But it does show the Pac-12 and Big-12 are not afraid of playing strong teams. I’d love to see the SEC do the same with with either the PAC-12 or Big -12, but the SEC will never give ups it’s usually patsy non-conference whipping boy games.

woebegong says:Dec 28, 2011 3:07 PM

Think about it for a minute before you make a blanket statement about the SEC. They have five teams in the top 25, even this late in the season. They will soon be playing an 8 game SEC schedule. This year, we have the number 1 and 2 teams in the nation. What would be the benefit of having a tie in with another conference? Who would you suggest the SEC team up with? Obviously it doesn’t hurt the SEC without this conference affiliation since the SEC will have now won, 6 BCS NC’s in a row, after Jan. 9th, 2012. There simply is not anything for the SEC to gain by doing this. There is no benenfit to them, and let’s face it, that’s the whole point of it in the first place.

I think it is great… I don’t think ANY team that wants to play in the BCS should schedule any non-Div 1 teams (FCS teams)… keep the two separate… I get so sick of seeing teams schedule cupcake games to pad their records (or the coaches’ record).

A playoff would help solve this, too… losing a couple tough games would not end your chance to be national champions… and playing tough games would strengthen your team…

I feel sure that if the SEC teams could get more competitive OCC games they would, but what would be the advantage for say, a team, in another conference playing an SEC team, they know could beat them to death. Maybe if they could get a big time school to play them OCC, it might be nice, but what teams do you think are willing to do that in the NCAA. The small sachools do it to generate some revenue. As for the ACC, they do indeed play a lot of games against the SEC, but how many schools from the ACC come out on top? UGA and Clemson do have the series starting up again in 2013, and it could be interesting. I don’t think Va. tech, plays an SEC team even once in a while. I don’t think the North Carolina teams, Maryland or Boston College have played an SEC team during the regular course of a year in quite a few years. UGA plays Georgia Tech. but Tech. seldom wins, and FSU plays Florida each year. S,C, plays Clemson each year, and over all the ACC comes up real short in these games each year. FSU did beat Florida this year though. If they were going to have a tie in with any conference the big 8, might be ok. That way the Texas longhorns could at least play A&M on a somewhat irregular schedule, depending on how it was arranged.

dkhhuey says:Dec 28, 2011 3:46 PM

SWEEEET!!!! That means OSU comes out here to Pac 12 country so we desert Buckeye fans can have some serious road trip adventures!!!

The only ACC-SEC game I am really familiar with is the UGA-Tech. game and over all the series is not even close. UGA has a big lead. GT beats UGA maybe twice in ten years and the record is now 11-1. Tech. doesn’t get the players that UGA gets. Tech. beat them one time, because UGA hadn’t seen enough of the triple option to know how to successfully defend against it. The next year they gavce up a lot of yards to tech. again, but beat them because Tech. imploded on themselves. This past year, they basically shut Tech. down and the defense kept the yardage by tech. low.
Next year, we play another triple option team the week before in Ga. Southern, so we will be even more ready to play tech.
The ACC did have good teams in the early 90,s and they were national champs a few times during that period. The last twenty years though, for the most part, the SEC has been much stronger than the ACC. I would think that the ACC has won about 25% of the time they have played in the last 20 years or so. The ACC is so spread out, and they have trouble attracting talent from the south, with the possible exception of FSU for the last two years. Florida schools should never have trouble attracting talent, if for nothing else than the climate.

SEC will never play another conferance and travel! I guess if other confernaces had, Miss, Miss st, Kentucky, Vandy, Tenn in there conferance thats 5 easy wins! BTW SEC fans, why don’t any SEC teams go to A&M OR mISSOURI in November this year? Afraid of cold weather???

woebegong says:Dec 28, 2011 4:30 PM

The reason teams in the SEC aren’t traveling so much to their new brothers stadiums this year is pretty simple to figure out, unless you let your feelings about the SEC, over run your evaluation skills. Missouri and A&M had to be melded into the SEC teams schedules. For instance, UGA goes to Missouri because this game replaces the one they would have played in Alabama. The inverse is also true. Next year, the schedules will be reversed assuming that they play the usual home and home schedule that the SEC usually plays. If they don’t play the same team next year, the next time they do play, it will be at the stadium of Missouri or A&M.

Your logic is the same reason Boise State plays such a cupcake schedule. Why schedule more than one top opponent a year when you can be rewarded for being 12-0 or 11-1 against cupcakes? I realize the SEC has a few good teams, but there records are bloated against the bad SEC teams, and they just admitted two more, AND easy non-conference games. Why change that, right?

latrobe21 says:Dec 28, 2011 9:53 PM

@ greatminnesota,

I think you almost had it. Teams from one year to the next can be significantly better or worse, depending on such things as graduations, declaring for the NFL draft, becoming academically ineligible, coaching changes, etc. Let each conference rank their respective teams for the upcoming season and then follow your structure.

78lion says:Dec 28, 2011 11:15 PM

While it might not be best for television and marketing, the best from a scheduling standpoint is to put a rotation in place. It will take forever to play through each others conference home and home, but will allow the more marketable teams say Oregon, to have to go to a less marketable team, say Indiana.

Start the series off with great matchups to promote, but be equitible in the long run.

woebegong says:Dec 29, 2011 1:05 AM

Do you not think that the SEC has a tough schedule of inner league play? Are you even trying to compare the league UGA is part of with the SEC?
In all honesty, because of Boise States relatively small size as far as stadium and campus go, they will have trouble getting into a really good conference, due to the above problems which would make it hard for them to be a profitable school over all. Some of these weak SEC teams as you say that had off years, have been BCS championship teams, such as Florida, Auburn, and even Tennessee. Name one conference that doesn’t have teams that have off years every once in a while and don’t have a few weak sisters from time to time. That argument just doesn’t carry water. Are you going to tell me that LSU didn’t play a pretty good OCC schedule this year? If the SEC just feeds off of weaker in conference teams and weak OCC’s, why aren’t other teams clambering to get at them? 6 straight BCS NC’s and 7 of the total BCS NC’s has to mean something.

vincentbojackson says:Dec 29, 2011 8:46 AM

Does this mean Ohio State won’t be able the schedule Youngstown State and other cupcakes to pad their record anymore.

Home and home series with Texas, USC and Miami are the only meaningful non-conference games the Bucks have scheduled in 15 years.

goblue714 says:Dec 31, 2011 9:02 AM

Awesome, richrod can get killed by the B1G again.

goblue714 says:Dec 31, 2011 9:05 AM

@woebegone

The SEC was mediocre outside of 2 teams this year. Just sayin.

woebegong says:Dec 31, 2011 9:15 AM

And your team would walk all over UGA, Arkansas and South Carolina. All conferences have teams that have down years. The fact remains that since the BCS has been in existence, the SEC had 7 NC’s by five different team, and one that has repeated, Florida. The strength of the SEC Conference lies in the fact, they they play each other 8 times a year, and a lot of the games are close, because it is such a competitive league. Five teams in the top 25, doesn’t sound like too weak to me, with 122 Div. 1 schools in the NCAA. No other team has five on the list for the first 25. If that is weak, I invite you to watch, year in and out, where SEC teams place in the top 25. I’ll take this weak conference over any other conference out there right now.

ecwhitt77 says:Dec 31, 2011 1:04 PM

@Bretterson I agree 100%. Wrigley field would definitely be more of a home game for the Big Ten. However, the PAC-12 has had a home game for forever. What’s it called? They play it in California. Oh yeah, it’s the Rose Bowl.

ecwhitt77 says:Dec 31, 2011 1:12 PM

@woebegong “No other team has five on the list for the first 25.” The BIG TEN (12) have five teams in the Top 25 as well.

goblue714 says:Dec 31, 2011 1:29 PM

I agree with whitt, the bowl system is unfair to the B1G. By the way my wife is a whitt, she’s ernie whitts neice(major league catcher for 18yrs)